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Putting the Shine Back on Quarry Tiles

Not too long ago I visited a client who had just moved into a lovely old cottage in Milton, Oxfordshire. She wanted to restore many of the antique features of the building, including a fantastic Quarry tiled floor in the kitchen.

Quarry is typically a robust, hard wearing stone, but in a high traffic area like a kitchen, the tiles will need regular maintenance. These tiles clearly hadn’t seen a thorough clean and fresh seal in a long time, and so I was called in to provide just that.

Deep cleaning an old Quarry tiled floor

On the first day of work, I gave the Quarry tiles a deep clean using a strong solution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean and water. Pro-Clean is a versatile alkaline cleaner that also helps to break down any old and no longer effectual sealer remaining on the tiles.

The solution was applied evenly to the floor and left to dwell for half an hour, allowing time for it to seep into the stone to get underneath and lift out the ingrained dirt. I then removed the dirt by agitating the solution with a scrubbing pad fitted to a rotary floor scrubber. I worked in small sections at first, and gradually finished the entire floor.

After completing the initial clean, I rinsed away the soiled solution and vacuumed up the excess moisture using a wet-vac machine. I then scrubbed the floor an acid wash using a dilution of Tile Doctor Grout Clean-Up to remove grout smears and other mineral type deposits. The resulting solution was then removed in a similar fashion using a wet-vac.

The final step in the cleaning process was to rinse the floor with Tile Doctor pH Neutral Cleaner to remove any trace of product helps to tackle any remaining dirt and reset the pH balance of the tiles before sealing.

Sealing a Quarry tiled floor

After leaving the floor to dry overnight, I returned the next day to the house to seal the floor with Tile Doctor Seal & Go, a water-based topical sealer which gives the floor an aesthetically pleasing sheen and a robust surface seal.

The photos demonstrate the results better than this short account can, needless to say the floor is now transformed.

One thought on “Putting the Shine Back on Quarry Tiles”

Sealers do breakdown over time depending on wear and tear and what products are used to clean the floor so if you do want to keep your tile and grout looking its best talk to Tile Doctor to work out a maintenance program for your floor.